A guest post from Grant Faulkner, co-founder of 100 Word Story, the magazine that makes Brevity look verbose:

Writers are presumed to be lovers of words. They’re called wordsmiths, praised for their lyricism, and celebrated for capturing telling details. Stories are built through text, after all, so we strive to learn the fine art of vivid verbs, hone an ear for dialogue, and absorb new vocabulary. These are all valuable tools, but one of the most important tools of writing can be neglected by attending only to the words of a story. I call that tool “minding the gaps.”

I’m speaking about the gaps between words, sentences, paragraphs—the gaps around a story itself. Such gaps determine a story’s contours, its aesthetic. What is left out of a story is as important as what is included because life moves as much through disconnections as connections. Think of the gulf between…

 I posted the interior of Ely Cathedral’s lantern tower the other day, and here is the exterior of the lantern.

Holy Well:  OS Grid Reference – SK 748 779

Getting Here

The Lady Well at Headon

Follow the road around from Headon village to the Ladywell estate and on the left hand side is a small copse and footpath. It is near the junction of Greenspotts Lane and Lady Well Lane. Park carefully near here and walk down the small ravine to the well.

History & Archaeology

Only two dates can be confirmed of this site. One a reference in County records of mending a bridge to a ‘Ladyewell‘ in the nearby Markham parish, but this could easily be another site.  A better date is that  1718 which is carved on its arch. It was used as a source of water  until the 1930s. One of the most atmospheric and pleasantly situated sites, the spring is located in a small wooded dell and arises from the rock in a small alcove or cave.  This is…

My hiatus from extended review writing sadly continues, but with the Academy Awards coming up, I wanted to reveal who I’ll be rooting for during the ceremony. These are not my predictions of who WILL win (which can be found right here, if you need to win your Oscar pool), these are ranked lists of my personal preferences. 1 is what will send me leaping from my seat and overflowing my champagne flute in celebration; the higher the number, however, the less I want it to win. Without further ado:

Best Picture:
1. The Wolf of Wall Street
2. Her
3. Captain Phillips
4. Gravity
5. Nebraska
6. 12 Years a Slave
7. Philomena
8. Dallas Buyers Club
9. American Hustle

Best Director:
1. Alfonso Cuaron, Gravity
2. Martin Scorsese, The Wolf of Wall Street
3. Steve McQueen, 12 Years a Slave
4. Alexander Payne, Nebraska
5. David O…

As promised, here is the third installment of the series based upon Dorothea’s Brande’s recommendations on how writers can write effortlessly and how they can carve out more writing time for themselves.

Her suggestions for writers include early morning writing and writing by prearrangement. After one has practiced both for some time, Brande assures the writer that s/he will reap many rewards from the faithful practice of writing first thing in the morning and making appointments with one’s self to write.

When you have succeeded in establishing these two habits — early morning writing and writing by agreement with yourself — you have com a long way on the writer’s path. You have gained, on the one had, fluency, and on the other control, even though in an elementary way. You know a great deal more about yourself, in all likelihood, than you did when you embarked on the…

If you are able to make the trip to Colonial Williamsburg (and do pop in and visit us at the Williamsburg Library if you do!) you will notice the beautiful gardens. Like everything in Colonial Williamsburg, they strive to make the gardens authentic to colonial times, which means lots of cottage vegetable gardens grown in old-fashioned organic ways. Whether you can visit us or not  Vegetable Gardening the Colonial Williamsburg Way is a great book for both gardeners and history buffs.

For gardeners Vegetable Gardening the Colonial Williamsburg Way offers a wealth of practical advice and techniques, as the author points out, “many gardening tasks have spanned the centuries relatively unchanged”. Coaxing food from the earth has always required the same patience, diligence and skill.

The historically minded can learn about the past of vegetables, for example did you know that “The onion and its relatives–leeks, shallots, garlic, and chives–are among…